Mac OS X is a continuation of the NeXT OS line, and the changes are in keeping with the change from NeXTSTEP to OPENSTEP for Mach.
Some of the changes just reflect what had happened during the life of the OS. FreeBSD had grown up, so switching from BSD to FreeBSD made sense. Quartz is sort of like "Display PDF" and hence a logical replacement for Display Postscript. As for the UI changes, I think we're forgetting how different Mac OS X is to Classic Mac OS. The menu arrangement is pretty irrelevant, the Dock is not that different to the NeXT Dock, and the "Apple Menu" is a shadow of its former self. The Finder is a (poor) rewrite of Workspace Manager. Mac OS X's UI is NeXTSTEP on "happy pills".
The Mac stuff seems limited; QuickTime (replacing NeXTTIME), ColorSync (which is wonderful), Carbon, OpenGL replacing Quick RenderMan, AppleScript - I'm sure there is more.
So would I describe Mac OS X as "just" a new version of NeXTSTEP - no, there is no "just" when you start with the best desktop OS of the day, but Mac OS X has very little to do with classic Mac OS.
by Jeremy — Mar 26
Some of the changes just reflect what had happened during the life of the OS. FreeBSD had grown up, so switching from BSD to FreeBSD made sense. Quartz is sort of like "Display PDF" and hence a logical replacement for Display Postscript. As for the UI changes, I think we're forgetting how different Mac OS X is to Classic Mac OS. The menu arrangement is pretty irrelevant, the Dock is not that different to the NeXT Dock, and the "Apple Menu" is a shadow of its former self. The Finder is a (poor) rewrite of Workspace Manager. Mac OS X's UI is NeXTSTEP on "happy pills".
The Mac stuff seems limited; QuickTime (replacing NeXTTIME), ColorSync (which is wonderful), Carbon, OpenGL replacing Quick RenderMan, AppleScript - I'm sure there is more.
So would I describe Mac OS X as "just" a new version of NeXTSTEP - no, there is no "just" when you start with the best desktop OS of the day, but Mac OS X has very little to do with classic Mac OS.
Mac OS X is Apple's "Vista" to NeXT's "NT4"